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Sunday, May 8, 2011

Syria: Has Communique No 1 Been Issued?

By Tariq Alhomayed This commentary was published in Asharq al-Awsat on 07/05/2011

For the seventh week in a row, the Syrian people's uprising against the regime has continued, without showing any indication of stopping or weakening, in fact the protests have spread to various geographic regions across Syria. This is something that reflects the strength of the protestors' momentum within the country, and the depth of the crisis that this regime, which is sinking in quicksand, is facing.

This Friday, dubbed the "Friday of Challenge" in Syria, saw new escalations, including previously seen phenomenon, but on a larger scale. We saw the huge number of hand-held banners being carried by the Syrian protests which personally denounced the Syrian president himself, not just his policy of suppression, or his political party. This means that the regime and the Syrian rebels have reached the point of no return, and we can no longer view the protestors as being a minority or belonging to a single sect. This is because the protest movement has taken root in all Syrian cities, including Damascus, Homs, Aleppo, and Hama, as well as the Kurdish region and other cities and regions, including even those that are majority Alawite.

What will the regime do now? Will it rule the people and protect the cities with tanks, and continue as a divided and weak regime, along the lines of the al-Bashir regime in Sudan, which split the country in two in order to stay in power? Will there be an internal coup from within the regime in order to set right what can be set right? Or will this "Friday of Challenge" continue week after week until the army splits – especially as there have been reports of clashes between the army and the security forces in Homs and other regions – and so will we see al-Assad's Syria following in the footsteps of Gaddafi's Libya? These are all good questions! It is clear that the Syrian regime does not understand what is happening, and indeed cannot believe that the people have risen up against it, something that reminds us of the Libyan leader Colonel Gaddafi's famous "Zenga Zenga" speech in which he addressed his people asking "what has happened to you? Why are you acting like this?" It seems that the Libyan regime does not understand that the rules of the game have changed, and that they can no longer govern through fear, in the same manner as Saddam Hussein, the other face of Baathism; this is something that indicates that the end is approaching.

The fact that the rules of the game have changed in Syria has now become clear, and today we have seen the people of Homs, Aleppo, and Damascus come out to protest against the Syrian government. The Syrian regime's suppression of protestors even included the suppression of religious figures, which may serve to further divide the army and security services. Following the protests in Aleppo, the city of merchants, as well as Damascus, and the Syrian regime arresting a prominent imam in the capital, and the protests now engulfing the rural areas, as well as the capital city, in addition to the recorded cases of mutiny in the army, what is left of the regime?

Therefore, protests have broken out in all of these cities, for the seventh consecutive week, and there is talk today about the disappearance of influential Syrian figures from the scene, not to mention the silence of others, particularly as almost everything we hear today is attributed to a military or security source, or a statement from the Syrian Interior Ministry. This is contrary to the normal Syrian mode of operation where the most prominent spokesperson for the Syrian regime was either the president himself, or his media representative Bouthaina Shaaban. All of this raises real questions about the extent of the cracks within the Sryian regime today, which has caused observers to feel as if a Syrian Communiqué No. 1 [along the lines of Communique No. 1 issued by the Egyptian army just days before Mubarak stepped down] has been issued without anybody realizing. Some faces have disappeared, to be replaced by ghostly "sources" and statements, and this raises more questions than answers, and serves as evidence that the Sryian regime itself is its own worst enemy, for it does not want to acknowledge the facts.

About Me

I graduated from the French University in Beirut (St Joseph) specialising in Political and Economic Sciences. I started my working life in 1973 as a reporter and journalist for the pan-Arab magazine “Al-Hawadess” in Lebanon later becoming its Washington, D.C. correspondent. I subsequently moved to London in 1979 joining “Al-Majallah” magazine as its Deputy Managing Editor. In 1984 joined “Assayad” magazine in London initially as its Managing Editor and later as Editor-in-Chief. Following this, in 1990 I joined “Al-Wasat” magazine (part of the Dar-Al-Hayat Group) in London as a Managing Editor. In 2011 I became the Editor-In-Chief of Miraat el-Khaleej (Gulf Mirror). In July 2012 I became the Chairman of The Board of Asswak Al-Arab Publishing Ltd in UK and the Editor In Chief of its first Publication "Asswak Al-Arab" Magazine (Arab Markets Magazine) (www.asswak-alarab.com).

I have already authored five books. The first “The Tears of the Horizon” is a love story. The second “The Winter of Discontent in The Gulf” (1991) focuses on the first Gulf war sparked by Saddam Hussein’s invasion of Kuwait. His third book is entitled “Israeli-Palestinian Conflict: From Balfour Promise to Bush Declaration: The Complications and the Road to a Lasting Peace” (March 2008). The fourth book is titled “How Iran Plans to Fight America and Dominate the Middle East” (October 2008) And the fifth and the most recent is titled "JIHAD'S NEW HEARTLANDS: Why The West Has Failed To Contain Islamic Fundamentalism" (May 2011).

Furthermore, I wrote the memoirs of national security advisor to US President Ronald Reagan, Mr Robert McFarlane, serializing them in “Al-Wasat” magazine over 14 episodes in 1992.

Over the years, I have interviewed and met several world leaders such as American President Bill Clinton, British Prime Minister Margaret Thacher, Late King Hassan II of Morocco, Late King Hussein of Jordan,Tunisian President Zein El-Abedine Bin Ali, Lybian Leader Moammar Al-Quadhafi,President Amine Gemayel of Lebanon,late Lebanese Prime Minister Rafic Hariri, Late Palestinian Chairman Yasser Arafat, Haitian President Jean Claude Duvalier, Late United Arab Emirates President Sheikh Zayed Bin Sultan Al Nahyan,Algerian President Shazli Bin Jdid, Jamaican Prime Minister Edward Siyagha and more...